No idle question

The Beatitudes are among the literary and religious treasures of the human race. We can savor them, affirm them, meditate on them, and engrave them on plaques to hang on our walls. But a major question remains: How are we to live in response to them? This is no idle question. Misunderstanding the “blesseds” given by Jesus in Matthew 5 has caused not a small amount of pain and confusion down through the ages that continues today. Strangely enough, his blesseds have not uniformly been a blessing.

It will help us to know what to do with the Beatitudes—and what not to do—if we can catch a glimpse of what Jesus was doing with them.